WHO are we? (the network)
(See also “About the Network“).
Written in the early 2000’s. It was all true at the time. 20 years later some specifics may have changed.
– – – – – – – – – –
I think you will be surprised when I tell you WHO we are. On one hand you may like to know. But there is a part of me that doesn’t want to tell you. I have told you that you are an amazing group of people who delight me.
If I tell you more specifically, you will know about differences. Those differences are normally not observable in email networks – you come to know people just by their ideas, not by their physical characteristics.
Prejudice and stereotypes are largely (not completely) inactivated. Really, we are just a group of like-minded people pitching in and working loosely together.
But here is a sampling of the diversity in JUST MY PART OF OUR EMAIL TREE.
Some of our participants are of
– native North American Indian background,
– different Oriental backgrounds,
– Inuit background,
– Metis
– European backgrounds
– Australian
– African
– people whose origins are in the Indian sub-continent
– many, of course, I don’t know.
– some are several generation Canadian
– we have a few very new Canadians
– and several non-Canadians (people from other countries)
– In age, we have people who are in their teens, 20’s, 30’s, 40’s, 50’s, 60’s, 70’s, 80’s and now 90’s.
– in background we have people from many different walks of life, from “not-gainfully-employed” (like me) to people from backgrounds that are regarded as “influential” in our society.
We can all be influential; “Status is not tied to our roles/jobs/positions or how much money we have, but to how we behave. It is something we do, not who we are.” Our network is composed of people of status!
– we are from various religious / spiritual backgrounds.
– some people are connected to a political party, many not. We have (alphabetically and of which I am aware) Canadian Action Party, Conservatives, Greens, Liberals, New Democrats. Unfortunately, we don’t have anyone from the Bloc. We might have a Communist, I’m not certain.
– we have people from different genders and different gender relationships.
– in temperament we have the passionate to the involved to the aware. All play a role and all are needed.
– collectively we have a fair amount of capability in different languages.
Our emails are flung far and wide. I hear from people I don’t know, and am amazed that in the far reaches of this country we are connected to each other.
That’s impressive!
hello Sandra. We are in the process of deciding what to do with the census; do we fill it out or not, or partially? Just wanted a simple answer on whether it is mandatory or not, and if it is, how much info do we have to give them?
From: Sandra Finley
Sent: June 23, 2021
Hi John,
RE Your Comment of June 22 (under WHO are we?)
It is mandatory to supply a head count of how many people live at the address.
It is not mandatory to supply information that is personal.
How have the Courts interpreted “Personal”?
What is “personal” to you, may not be interpreted as “personal” by someone else.
In general, the Courts recognize the variability in interpretation. i.e. YOU decide what is “personal”.
(Makes sense. A white middle-class person may feel that “Religion” – United Church is not “personal”. Whereas a Muslim may view choice of Religion as a very personal matter, something that the State should not be forcing disclosure of, under threat of prosecution.
RE: your question
a. fill it out – okay.
b. fill it out partially – okay, nothing will happen.
c. do not fill it out – okay, provided you don’t say to the Census worker “I am not going to fill it out”.
(The Federal Justice Dept will not prosecute if they cannot call the Census worker to testify against you. The census workers make notes of their conversations. If you didn’t provide good “proof” in what you said to the census worker, if the census worker does not have “evidence” in their notes, with which to “testify” in a Court, you will not be prosecuted. In context: 65 is an average of the number of people charged with non-compliance, each census, from ALL of Canada.)
Census workers know what their training by StatsCan for the job teaches them.
Which is that they are “doing this for all Canadians and for Canada” – – A great Service to Country.
I talked with a local census worker (pretty-well informed, and a thinking person). She kind of viewed the Census data as being a one-shot collection of data, once every 5 years. She is probably representative: people do not stop to think. When this person stopped, she understood that the census data collection is ONLY ONE COMPONENT of the data that is being assembled on individual people. Therein lies the danger.
You may recall a few years ago when StatsCan moved ahead with a plan to collect financial data on people from the Banks, as outrageous as that idea is. Average citizens didn’t need to organize to resist – – the Banks said “Absolutely not! That is beyond acceptable”.
Good luck, and have fun with it, John.
The census workers are regular people. I had a fun conversation yesterday with the gentleman assigned to me.
I think people, regardless of WHO they are, are becoming increasingly uneasy about the step-by-step development of a surveillance state.
/Sandra